Throughout the history of the Post Office, there has been a gradual evolution whereby the Post Office encourages mailers to prepare their mail in such a way as to reduce the effort required on the part of the Post Office for processing such mail. As an inducement to the mailer to prepare the mail in such a manner so as to bring about faster mail delivery, the Post Office offers mailers a discount on such items as pre-sorted mail and printing of nine digit zip codes. Discounts are given also when the mail is produced in a manner allowing automatic processing with machines such as optical character recognition (OCR) sorters and bar code readers and sorters.
Even with present mail processing techniques with reduced postage rates for pre-sorted mail, zip code mail and the like, the Post Office is still experiencing difficulties in processing the mail, not only because of the ever increasing volume of mail that is required to be delivered, but also because a significant amount of mail presented to the Post Office does not have the required postage or may not meet the requirements of postal regulations. The mail pieces may not have sufficient postage because the anticipated weight of a mail piece could be greater than expected. In equipment for processing large amounts of mail, it is frequently a practice to determine the weight of inserts of a mail piece, and together with the weight of the envelope, the total weight of the mail piece is calculated and postage paid in accordance with that calculated weight. The mail pieces are placed in trays and these trays are delivered to the Post Office. Frequently, weight errors occur which cause insufficient postage payment that results in delays being experienced by the Post Office. These errors frequently occur because extra inserts are inserted into envelopes as when inserts stick to one another and a plurality are inserted when only a single insert is called for. Another occurance is faulty equipment.
The Post Office has been seeking ways of having the mailers' hardware and software certified to assure the mail processing systems used by mailers are accurate as described in Memo to Mailers, August/September 1989, pp. 4 published by the United States Postal Service. In keeping with this endeavor, the Post Office has requested entities involved in the mailing business to provide solutions to the mail processing problems by using certification techniques that would assure the Post Office that mail received from the mailer has adequate postage.